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It’s 27 degrees outside, the oranges are turning into orangesicles, and now this.
AT&T reports an independent construction crew in Volusia County accidentally cut a fiber cable that has resulted in a major cell phone outage for residents across northern and central Florida.
“An AT&T wireless disruption is currently impacting some customers in parts of Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Daytona, Ocala, Gainesville, and Panama City,” says an AT&T spokesperson. “Some customers may have trouble connecting to voice calls and voicemail at this time.”
AT&T is trying to repair the cable to restore service.
Stop the Cap! reader Jasper in Wildwood, Fla., wonders how one fiber cut can take out AT&T’s cell phone network for half the state.
“This sure isn’t your father’s AT&T,” Jasper writes. “Hasn’t AT&T ever heard of redundant backup systems for just these occasions?”
Jasper noticed his AT&T cell phone service quit connecting calls earlier this evening.
“It’s either a fast busy signal or nothing at all,” Jasper reports. “AT&T froze us out.”
Did data keep on working? From what I’ve seen, telcos are generally better at keeping their data networks for cellular on than their voice networks these days. Must be those overage dollars at work… Many months ago a fiber cable was cut in the TX hill country. Cell phones…except for 3G data on AT&T from what I’m told…were all out. Landlines could only call other landlines connected to the same exchange. Verizon DSL stopped working, while Windstream DSL was sporadic. However the cable company’s internet service kept on chugging, as did internet service for a local telephone cooperative who wasn’t… Read more »
This doesn’t make any sense because 10 -12 years ago when I worked for a phone company, we were installing cable and could not complete any locations without complete redundancy! Are you saying that the backup was cut as well? Or did they have illegal fiber with no redundancy? I’m in central FL and my service went from ok to shi**y in the last year it is may 2014 and I can barely make calls